(1832 - 1928)

Aaron Draper Shattuck is celebrated today for his intimate, precisely rendered pastoral
landscapes in the Hudson River School style. Shattuck debuted as a landscape artist in 1855, the
same year that Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886) published his series of “Letters on
Landscape Painting” in the commencement issue of The Crayon. Durand encouraged artists to
paint directly from nature and with scrupulous fidelity. His letters provide significant insight
into the methods and purposes of mid-nineteenth century landscape art and the spirit of the time in
which Shattuck flourished.

Unlike many American artists of any generation, Shattuck felt little professional obligation to study in
Europe. Born in New Hampshire, he studied in Boston and New York City, and spent his summers sketching and gathering inspiration within the borders of New England and New York. His fidelity
to nature and sensitivity to its conditions and colors earned him praise from the first time he
exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1855. He was elected a full member six years
later.

Shattuck purchased a twenty-eight acre farmstead for his family in Granby, Connecticut in
1870. He remained there until his death in 1928. He ceased painting altogether in 1888, and in
the last decades of his life he enjoyed his time in the roles of animal breeder, horticulturalist,
craftsman, and inventor.